US senators unveil bill to keep Trump from allowing AI chip sales to China

It requires Commerce Department to contradict immoderate licence requests for AI spot buyers successful China, Russia, Iran oregon North Korea.

A bipartisan radical of United States senators, including salient Republican China hawk Tom Cotton, has unveiled a measure that would artifact the medication of President Donald Trump from loosening rules restricting Beijing’s entree to artificial quality chips for 2.5 years.

The bill, unveiled connected Thursday, is known arsenic the SAFE CHIPS Act and was filed by Republican Senator Pete Ricketts and Democrat Chris Coons.

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It would necessitate the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, to contradict immoderate licence requests for buyers successful China, Russia, Iran oregon North Korea to person US AI chips much precocious than the ones they presently are allowed to get for 30 months. After that, the Department of Commerce would person to little Congress connected immoderate projected regularisation changes a period earlier they instrumentality effect.

“Denying Beijing entree to [the champion US] AI chips is indispensable to our nationalist security,” Ricketts said successful a statement.

The legislation, which was co-sponsored by Republican Dave McCormick and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Andy Kim, represents a uncommon effort led successful portion by Trump’s ain enactment to halt him from further relaxing tech export restrictions connected China.

Faced with caller Chinese export curbs connected the uncommon world metals that planetary tech companies trust on, Trump’s Commerce Department imposed and past rolled backmost curbs connected Nvidia’s H20 AI chips, a determination that was criticised by Republican Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee connected China.

As portion of negotiations with China to hold its ain uncommon world controls, Trump pushed backmost by a twelvemonth a regularisation to restrict US tech exports to units of already-blacklisted Chinese companies and has pledged to nix a Biden-era regularisation restricting AI spot exports globally to countries based successful portion connected concerns astir spot smuggling to China.

The measure comes arsenic the Trump medication mulls greenlighting income of Nvidia’s H200 artificial quality chips to China. China hawks successful Washington fearfulness that Beijing could usage the prized chips to supercharge its subject with AI-powered weapons and much almighty quality and surveillance capabilities.